


ficlet: sleeping arrangements

by belovedmuerto



Series: He Kindly Stopped For Me [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, death!john, demigod Sherlock, in general, some abuse of mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:23:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1747775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Sherlock crawls into bed with him, late at night, stiff, hesitant the way Sherlock Bloody Holmes <em>never</em> is, John knows it’s all over but for him actually saying the words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ficlet: sleeping arrangements

**Author's Note:**

> Another ficlet in the 'verse wherein John is Death, and Sherlock is a demigod.

The first time Sherlock crawls into bed with him, late at night, stiff, hesitant the way Sherlock Bloody Holmes _never_ is, John knows it’s all over but for him actually saying the words. Of course he’ll forgive Sherlock, even this. Even trapping him in mortal form for untold centuries. (John can see it, if he looks carefully, the way he sees the lifespan of every mortal whose path he crosses, if he so chooses [and sometimes when he doesn’t]. With Sherlock, he chooses not to look. Not anymore. For now, it’s too bitter a reminder. Later [many centuries later], it will be bitter for different reasons.)

Because he can be honest with himself, he knows that he’s all but forgiven Sherlock already. And he knows _why_. Just as Sherlock bound him for love, so to has he not leave because of love. He supposes he’ll get around to telling Sherlock that, eventually. For now, it’s an uncomfortable weight in his chest. One he’s not used to, that suffocates him sometimes with its intensity.

It’s so rare that he finds it for himself, love. Rare that he allows himself ot feel so human and fragile an emotion. 

Oh, he loves them all, but that’s a different kind of love. A far more vast and detached sort of love, not this burning fierce thing.

So he doesn’t kick Sherlock out of his bed, when he crawls into it late at night. Sherlock curls up stiff beside him and stays still, breathing carefully and evenly, as though he thinks perhaps John won’t notice a second person in bed with him, or won’t wake up, or won’t kick him out if he’s just still and quiet enough.

John sighs, eventually, and reaches across the gulf between his body and Sherlock’s, until his knuckles brush against the soft, warm skin of Sherlock’s back, starting to grow cool in the night air. It’s always cooler in John’s room in the winter than in Sherlock’s, and Sherlock rarely wears much more than pants to sleep in. John’s pretty sure he’s only got those on in deference to invading John’s bed.

Sherlock sighs and relaxes, fraction by fraction, and they stay like that, though he does tug the duvet up over his shoulders. He shifts and adjusts minutely until John’s fingers are more firmly pushed into his back, and sighs again.

In the morning, John wakes up alone, and he allows himself to treat it like a dream, because in the golden light of morning, he’s not ready to speak to Sherlock yet, not ready to let it go, not yet. He still feels too tight in his own skin, too big for the mortal form he’s been squeezed into, and he prickles with it. He still feels his power seeping out and filling the flat at odd times, when his emotions are high--which is always right now--and he’s not sure he can speak to Sherlock yet without all of that getting in the way.


End file.
